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I'm just back from the herbalist, and feeling positive. She said all the right things, especially that pretty much all health problems start in the gut! She also didn't try to convince me to go vegetarian or eat lentils or whole grains, so we were off to a flying start as far as I'm concerned.

I filled out a symptomology questionnaire, and realised how far I've come in the last 2 years (my MDA anniversary is Feb 18th). But also how far I have to go. The sheer reach my gut symptoms have into the rest of my life are a bit mind-boggling - I already knew that they restricted my diet heaps, affected my sleep, made my back and joints sore . . . but I hadn't connected the constant low level of physical health-related stress to my hair-trigger stress response. It makes sense, though - my body is under constant strain because of the food intolerances and inability to absorb nutrients properly, so anything over and above the normal living kinds of activities and I start to crumble under the weight of it all.

For now, I have a herbal mixture to take before meals twice a day for the first three days of the week, followed by slippery elm for the other 4 days, as well as an enzyme/probiotic to take every day. The herbal mixture is a fairly gentle one that starts to deal with strep, candida, parasites and something else that completely escapes me. It's also got some systemic boosting things for cutting mucous, breaking down protein, and supporting the adrenals. I do this protocol for abut 4 weeks, until the bottle of brew runs out and then reassess.

We shall see. My history of putting new things in my mouth isn't pretty, but these women have worked wonders on me before so I'm going to trust the process

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Eek, I just googled 'weed, seed and feed' to see what information is out there about this protocol - and my journal came up! Maybe I'll change my avatar if this stuff is so public!

Anyway, it's day three of the protocol and I feel fine. Tomorrow I substitute slippery elm for healing, instead of the 'weed' part of the process. The herbs taste kind of OK, but they're not something I'd drink for fun .

I also worked out my macros for ketosis yesterday. I'm still getting slight headaches and some stomach griping, but they're reducing.

I'm still not tracking by numbers, but I know that a full hand sized steak or roast is going to be about 25g protein, and an egg is about 6g. I'm tending towards 2 meals a day, so they can be pretty solid sized! I'm also not counting carbs, but if I'm avoiding getting an IBS flare with fodmaps and high quantities, then I'm pretty safe.

It's been a good day - Waitangi day. We've made some damson plum sauce, which made the kitchen smell amazing. Last weekend we made green tomato relish. Great stuff. It does have sugar, but that's a part of my plan so it's fine. If I start craving sugar, that'll be one of the sacrifices!

I have this weird feeling, though - like guilt, or as though there's something wrong. Not sure what it's about! It's a feeling I associate with having something bad looming. Like a sense of impending doom. Maybe I'm channelling the feelings from my doomed gut biome

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What a stupid hour of the day (night) to be writing a journal entry . I've eaten too much! I've had some really busy days, and was exhausted tonight. I had enough dinner, possibly even a bit much steak, and then when I was offered some blueberries and coconut cream I agreed. So I ended up with more or less having a double dinner. Then went to bed at about 8.45pm, and woke again just after 11 feeling really uncomfortable. So here I sit in a dark kitchen, sipping on peppermint tea and cursing myself for being a fool.

This is a pattern - in spite of going vlc, I have continued to have stomach aches. I reread my food diary and noticed that I'm letting myself get too hungry, then am overeating at dinner time. Time to stop doing that! The last 2 days I've increased the frequency of my meals to 3x a day, and decreased the quantity - until tonight .

I'm going on a 2 day retreat on Thurs/Fri this week. The blurb from the hosts say 'absolutely no food to be brought in'. That's pretty weird, I decided. It's not a religious or spiritual retreat, it's an academic one! I've been able to request food that is dairy, nut and legume free, but thought that adding grain, sugar, and vege oil free was probably a step too far. I have, though, said that I usually eat simple meat and veges - wonder if that'll work?? I plan to take one of the soft cooler bags, stuffed with freezer bricks, with boiled eggs, sausages and coconut oil - because I'm rapidly getting to the point where I don't trust anyone else's cooking!

The trip to the US is taking shape. We can't do the road trip between Urbana and Toronto as we wanted to - it's against my work policy to drive so far, and it was confusing the issue around conference leave and annual leave. So we'll be flying all the way, but ending up in LA with 9 days to fill. I'd like to rent a car from LAX and do a trip to San Francisco and Las Vegas, spending a couple of days in each place and a couple of days travelling and stopping heaps.